Sunday, September 26, 2010

Day 18 AYCJ, Friday Sept 24, Lake Placid, FL


Photos: on the Canals in Lake Placid, Florida

Friday, September 24, Day 18 of my 30 day JetBlue All You Can Jet Adventure

Lake Placid, Florida, a place not many people have heard of. Lake Placid? You're in New York? Nope, Central Florida, south of Orlando, just south of Sebring.

After a lovely leisurely morning with Lou and Beverly, I went out into the canals and lakes, boating with Captain Lou! Not being much of a boater, I helped as much as I could, getting gas in the tank for the outboard motor, lowering the boat down into the water (well, we didn't do that manually, it was an electrical pulley-strap system thingy ... and I'm sure that's the official nautical term for it).

We were off into the canals. It was beautiful, parts looked like jungle, many houses on the canal, with boats in their docks. We headed out into a lake, and Captain Lou stepped on it! We sped across the lake, apparently not going all that fast, but it sure felt fast, especially when the front of the boat... hmm, is that the bow?... anyway, when the front goes up in the air it just doesn't feel right! I kept wanting to lean forward, afraid we'd flip over backwards! But we didn't.

There was a nice breeze on the water, and then it drizzled a little bit. It felt good actually, in the humid air, to have a little drizzle falling on us. So we returned back towards the house, and since it stopped drizzling, we headed the other way down the lagoon, into another lake. I quickly learned that when Captain Lou puts his cap on backwards... hold on, speed demon Lou is about to strike! We sped for a minute across this other lake, then headed back down the lagoon to head back towards home.

Parts of the ride felt like we were on the jungle cruise at Disneyland... except for real... except no elephants or rhinos, real or not. Then it started to drizzle again. Ah, that feels good. Then the drizzle became more of a rain. Well, still feels good. Then it got a little heavier. Oh this is funny, it's raining a little isn't it? With still quite a bit more ground to cover, er I guess I mean more water to cover, before returning to home base, the downpour started. We had no cover over us, the boat is open, so it poured and poured, and we got completely drenched!

"Are we there yet?" I asked Captain Lou. But we weren't there yet. We weren't there yet for several good long minutes of much good hard rain. We started laughing, it was funny because we were like 2 drowned rats! It rained and rained. I guess it's good that there was no lightning. We finally got back to the house, got the boat back in, and Beverly met us with a stack of towels. My shorts and socks were soaked and my shoes are still drying out.

Of course, about an hour after we got back in the house, the sun came out and it was a beautiful day. Hey, let's go out on the boat!

That night we made a delicious chicken dinner. That went smoothly, except after I finished stirring the sauteed spinach, the utensil in the pan suddenly flipped out onto the floor, flinging bits of cooked spinach all over the kitchen. I'm still not sure how that happened, but it may be the last time Beverly lets me help her cook.

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